Part 5 (2/2)
”And a right good one, I take it. How like you that boy is, Glencore! I started back when he met me. It was just as if I was transported again to old school-days, and had seen yourself as you used to be long ago. Do you remember the long meadow, Glencore?”
”Harcourt,” said he, falteringly, ”don't talk to me of long ago,--at least not now;” and then, as if thinking aloud, added, ”How strange that a man without a hope should like the future better than the past!”
”How old is Charley?” asked Harcourt, anxious to engage him on some other theme.
”He 'll be fifteen, I think, his next birthday; he seems older, does n't he?”
”Yes, the boy is well grown and athletic. What has he been doing--have you had him at a school?”
”At a school!” said Glencore, starting; ”no, he has lived always here with myself. I have been his tutor; I read with him every day, till that illness seized me.”
”He looks clever; is he so?”
”Like the rest of us, George, he may learn, but he can't be taught. The old obstinacy of the race is strong in him, and to rouse him to rebel all you have to do is to give him a task; but his faculties are good, his apprehension quick, and his memory, if he would but tax it, excellent. Here 's Craggs come to tell us of dinner; give me your arm, George, we haven't far to go--this one room serves us for everything.”
”You're better lodged than I expected--your letters told me to look for a mere barrack; and the place stands so well.”
”Yes, the spot was well chosen, although I suppose its founders cared little enough about the picturesque.”
The dinner-table was spread behind one of the ma.s.sive screens, and, under the careful direction of Craggs and old Simon, was well and amply supplied,--fish and game, the delicacies of other localities, being here in abundance. Har-court had a traveller's appet.i.te, and enjoyed himself thoroughly, while Glencore never touched a morsel, and the boy ate sparingly, watching the stranger with that intense curiosity which comes of living estranged from all society.
”Charley will treat you to a bottle of Burgundy, Har-court,” said Glencore, as they drew round the fire; ”he keeps the cellar key.”
”Let us have two, Charley,” said Harcourt, as the boy arose to leave the room, ”and take care that you carry them steadily.”
The boy stood for a second and looked at his father, as if interrogating, and then a sudden flush suffused his face as Glencore made a gesture with his hand for him to go.
”You don't perceive how you touched him to the quick there, Harcourt?
You talked to him as to how he should carry the wine; he thought that office menial and beneath him, and he looked at me to know what he should do.”
”What a fool you have made of the boy!” said Harcourt, bluntly. ”By Jove! it was time I should come here!”
When the boy came back he was followed by the old butler, carefully carrying in a small wicker contrivance, _Hibernice_ called a cooper, three cobwebbed and well-crusted bottles.
”Now, Charley,” said Jarcourt, gayly, ”if you want to see a man thoroughly happy, just step up to my room and fetch me a small leather sack you 'll find there of tobacco, and on the dressing-table you 'll see my meerschaum pipe; be cautious with it, for it belonged to no less a man than Poniatowski, the poor fellow who died at Leipsic.”
The lad stood again irresolute and confused, when a signal from his father motioned him away to acquit the errand.
”Thank you,” said Harcourt, as he re-entered; ”you see I am not vain of my meerschaum without reason. The carving of that bull is a work of real art; and if you were a connoisseur in such matters, you 'd say the color was perfect. Have you given up smoking, Glencore?--you used to be fond of a weed.”
”I care but little for it,” said Glencore, sighing.
”Take to it again, my dear fellow, if only that it is a bond 'tween yourself and every one who whiffs his cloud. There are wonderfully few habits--I was going to say enjoyments, and I might say so, but I 'll call them habits--that consort so well with every condition and every circ.u.mstance of life, that become the prince and the peasant, suit the garden of the palace and the red watch-fire of the bivouac, relieve the weary hours of a calm at sea, or refresh the tired hunter in the prairies.”
”You must tell Charley some of your adventures in the West.--The Colonel has pa.s.sed two years in the Rocky Mountains,” said Glencore to his son.
”Ay, Charley, I have knocked about the world as much as most men, and seen, too, my share of its wonders. If accidents by sea and land can interest you, if you care for stories of Indian life and the wild habits of a prairie hunter, I 'm your man. Your father can tell you more of _salons_ and the great world, of what may be termed the high game of life--”
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